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celina_666's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I loved this SO much. Them meeting on the train is so cute!!!
izzys_internet_bookshelf's review
2.0
2/5
Ok first off I love the cover for this book! It is so cute! Secondly, I kind of enjoyed this book, lately I’ve been so worn out by work that I put myself in some sort of tired book slump.
Ok first off I love the cover for this book! It is so cute! Secondly, I kind of enjoyed this book, lately I’ve been so worn out by work that I put myself in some sort of tired book slump.
alannar2422's review
5.0
Loved this book sm , I loved the hispanic representation of culture and customs. The dynamic between Isa and Alex was a dream and the author brought them together in the best way. Every detail about this book was just gold. Both Alex and Isa's parents had huge expectations of their children and you see their growth as they struggle to live up to them and realize that they can live the life they want without restrictions. The romance was absolutely swoon worthy and I loved it so much. All of the characters were a delight and I loved reading their interactions.
Fav Quote: "I miss having someone ask how I am and caring for the answer."
(Couldn't find the exact quote but this is what I remember)
Fav Quote: "I miss having someone ask how I am and caring for the answer."
(Couldn't find the exact quote but this is what I remember)
emmareads444's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
chivalricmaiden's review
3.0
I stalled reading this book for the longest time because I was lazy, but I read the remaining 5/6ths of the book in one go during my business competition downtime. This isn't a light read like I thought there would be and there's lots of instances where it tells more than it shows. But I appreciate the story it was weaving minus that Kiara situation. I just can't bring myself to care for those kinds of things.
gmdacunha's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
aalexander8's review
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
If you were going into this book thinking it would be light-hearted and fun, it isn’t. It does have its moments though.
The author uses common themes found in romance novels about two characters from different sides of the tracks: racism and/or racial injustice (particularly from police and other authority figures), classism, family expectations, and friendship woes, etc. But, she also attempts to tackle heavier topics related to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, internalized racism (chiefly Isa’s bigoted mother who is Cuban born, yet does not want her daughter to marry a Spanish-speaking person), and the psychological effects of systemic racism and code switching. My guy, Alex deals with this real bad.
That’s alot for a YA “meet cute-esque” romance. And consent issues aside with that whole kissing a random stranger bit, I still wanted to enjoy this book. Unfortunately, it wasn’t well executed and I found myself put off by the characterization of Alex and Isa.
At times it seemed that the author wanted the reader to view the main character Isa, a beautiful ballet dancer, as the ideal with her lighter features, blond hair, and sweet nature. While Alex, the good-natured brown-skinned Dominican American baseball player with a domineering father, is only legitimatized by his love of poetry and his desire to defer to the dominant culture. And why wouldn’t he, his neighborhood has gangs, and drug abusing fathers, and overly jealous and attitudinal girls who can be used as rebounds and slighted continuously but still expected to be in your corner during times of racial injustice (Justice for Kiara(sp?)!!
So…definitely not my favorite book I’ve listened to this year. It was mildly entertaining and I did manage to maintain my usual 1.5x speed.
The author uses common themes found in romance novels about two characters from different sides of the tracks: racism and/or racial injustice (particularly from police and other authority figures), classism, family expectations, and friendship woes, etc. But, she also attempts to tackle heavier topics related to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, internalized racism (chiefly Isa’s bigoted mother who is Cuban born, yet does not want her daughter to marry a Spanish-speaking person), and the psychological effects of systemic racism and code switching. My guy, Alex deals with this real bad.
That’s alot for a YA “meet cute-esque” romance. And consent issues aside with that whole kissing a random stranger bit, I still wanted to enjoy this book. Unfortunately, it wasn’t well executed and I found myself put off by the characterization of Alex and Isa.
At times it seemed that the author wanted the reader to view the main character Isa, a beautiful ballet dancer, as the ideal with her lighter features, blond hair, and sweet nature. While Alex, the good-natured brown-skinned Dominican American baseball player with a domineering father, is only legitimatized by his love of poetry and his desire to defer to the dominant culture. And why wouldn’t he, his neighborhood has gangs, and drug abusing fathers, and overly jealous and attitudinal girls who can be used as rebounds and slighted continuously but still expected to be in your corner during times of racial injustice (Justice for Kiara(sp?)!!
So…definitely not my favorite book I’ve listened to this year. It was mildly entertaining and I did manage to maintain my usual 1.5x speed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Police brutality
Moderate: Classism and Racism
kovost's review against another edition
2.0
All right, look. I know that I have limited patience and an ever-growing boredom with straight romances. I already knew this and I continue to acknowledge this as I continue to get charmed by pretty covers and get annoyed by the number of non-problematic queer romances that I have to dig for. And let’s not talk about how sick I am about all queer romances being compared to Becky Albertalli; that’s another rant for another time that’s more fitting than this particular time where straight romance made me want to brain myself. Anyway.
Funny thing is, I wanted to like this book. I liked the concept. Am I aware that it’s wildly unrealistic and probably a little weird to fall in love with someone you met like twice on a train by chance? Yes. Did I care? Nah. Because it was fun to ignore my own reality and responsibilities! But I am both extremely underwhelmed and actually slightly peeved by this book because as someone that enjoys some miscommunication, sometimes even non-communication, for the sake of angst, this shit was just wild and frustrating as fuck. Because not only this but these characters were just awful to each other.
But hey, instead of writing a proper and coherent review, let’s make a bullet point list because I have nothing better to do with my time!
**NOT SPOILER FREE**
• It is a bold (and questionable of epic proportions) choice to have a female character throw some internalized misogyny out there for the sake of showing the readers how the love interest is a Good Feminist upon their first meeting and by choice, I did not mean a good one.
• It is also a bold (bold, not good) choice to make the aforementioned female character commit borderline sexual harassment to said Good Feminist Love Interest and briefly acknowledge that it would never be okay if a man did it and then have her apologize later which doesn’t, in any way, make up for the fact that she did it?
• Good Feminist Love Interest defaults to a girl that he knows is into him when he and The One break up (because it wouldn’t be a good book with poor communication without a good break-up from both sides for different reasons so make no mistake, there are two (2), COUNT ‘EM, break-ups technically) and then when shit hits the fan—as it do—it’s never really dealt with or apologized for. In fact, it’s kind of swept under the rug.
• LIKE THE RACISM AND POLICE BRUTALITY CLIMAX?????
• I’m not kidding. This book spends a good 95% clearly building up to something with foreshadowing of one of Alex’s best friends being in a gang and Alex clearly having anxiety and discomfort about police and at the end, when Isa and Alex are doing their stupid hetero tango of non-communication simply for the sake of dragging everything out, there’s a confrontation with the rival gang and the police assaulting Alex upon assuming he was part of it. This? This is not dealt with beyond “so Danny got out and is going to college and oh yeah, Alex is in therapy.” For giving it so much weight, it sure was tossed out the window real quick for the sake of Isa and Alex’s stupid romance.
• And I have no personal experience with the Dominican rep (obviously, as you could mistake me for a piece of printer paper) and only some personal experience with bipolar but something didn’t vibe and I don’t know what to tell you.
• My verdict? The author tried to cram way too much angst from different sources into one thing and it ended up being a disaster.
Here’s the thing, though. I didn’t hate this book. It kept me entertained enough; I did finish it which is either telling that it wasn’t so awful that I needed to catapult it into space or I’m a masochist, I don’t know. The writing wasn’t anything special and kind of almost read like a Wattpad fic in that weirdly specific things were overly detailed (like honestly, I didn’t care that much about every technical move Isa did and I didn’t care about the process of Alex eating a taco with his buds on the subway), but it’s whatever. Concept? Fun. Execution? Lackluster, a little exasperating in basically everything, I squinted a lot, I’d give a lukewarm D- so it’s fine. I guess.
Would I recommend this? I really have no idea. I’ve seen good reviews and I’ve also seen bad ones. The way the romance starts is fun, but there’s a lot of other infuriating elements and how they’re handled that can be hard to swallow for people so I’m gonna leave this one at: my opinion is entirely subjective and maybe you’ll love this, so go for it. Do what makes you happy.
Funny thing is, I wanted to like this book. I liked the concept. Am I aware that it’s wildly unrealistic and probably a little weird to fall in love with someone you met like twice on a train by chance? Yes. Did I care? Nah. Because it was fun to ignore my own reality and responsibilities! But I am both extremely underwhelmed and actually slightly peeved by this book because as someone that enjoys some miscommunication, sometimes even non-communication, for the sake of angst, this shit was just wild and frustrating as fuck. Because not only this but these characters were just awful to each other.
But hey, instead of writing a proper and coherent review, let’s make a bullet point list because I have nothing better to do with my time!
**NOT SPOILER FREE**
• It is a bold (and questionable of epic proportions) choice to have a female character throw some internalized misogyny out there for the sake of showing the readers how the love interest is a Good Feminist upon their first meeting and by choice, I did not mean a good one.
• It is also a bold (bold, not good) choice to make the aforementioned female character commit borderline sexual harassment to said Good Feminist Love Interest and briefly acknowledge that it would never be okay if a man did it and then have her apologize later which doesn’t, in any way, make up for the fact that she did it?
• Good Feminist Love Interest defaults to a girl that he knows is into him when he and The One break up (because it wouldn’t be a good book with poor communication without a good break-up from both sides for different reasons so make no mistake, there are two (2), COUNT ‘EM, break-ups technically) and then when shit hits the fan—as it do—it’s never really dealt with or apologized for. In fact, it’s kind of swept under the rug.
• LIKE THE RACISM AND POLICE BRUTALITY CLIMAX?????
• I’m not kidding. This book spends a good 95% clearly building up to something with foreshadowing of one of Alex’s best friends being in a gang and Alex clearly having anxiety and discomfort about police and at the end, when Isa and Alex are doing their stupid hetero tango of non-communication simply for the sake of dragging everything out, there’s a confrontation with the rival gang and the police assaulting Alex upon assuming he was part of it. This? This is not dealt with beyond “so Danny got out and is going to college and oh yeah, Alex is in therapy.” For giving it so much weight, it sure was tossed out the window real quick for the sake of Isa and Alex’s stupid romance.
• And I have no personal experience with the Dominican rep (obviously, as you could mistake me for a piece of printer paper) and only some personal experience with bipolar but something didn’t vibe and I don’t know what to tell you.
• My verdict? The author tried to cram way too much angst from different sources into one thing and it ended up being a disaster.
Here’s the thing, though. I didn’t hate this book. It kept me entertained enough; I did finish it which is either telling that it wasn’t so awful that I needed to catapult it into space or I’m a masochist, I don’t know. The writing wasn’t anything special and kind of almost read like a Wattpad fic in that weirdly specific things were overly detailed (like honestly, I didn’t care that much about every technical move Isa did and I didn’t care about the process of Alex eating a taco with his buds on the subway), but it’s whatever. Concept? Fun. Execution? Lackluster, a little exasperating in basically everything, I squinted a lot, I’d give a lukewarm D- so it’s fine. I guess.
Would I recommend this? I really have no idea. I’ve seen good reviews and I’ve also seen bad ones. The way the romance starts is fun, but there’s a lot of other infuriating elements and how they’re handled that can be hard to swallow for people so I’m gonna leave this one at: my opinion is entirely subjective and maybe you’ll love this, so go for it. Do what makes you happy.
✨ Rep: half Cuban mc, Dominican American mc/li, POC side characters, side characters with mental illness (bipolar disorder)
!! CWs: racism, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt (off-page, side character)